Father Resources When Trying, Expecting, and After Birth

maggiee22

Hello everyone! First and foremost, I am a first-time poster (veteran reader) and I am very thankful to discover such an informative community! Thanks to all of you with your contributions for others to learn from.

My question -- I have been searching for solid resources (books, audiobooks, etc.) to help inform me on what to expect in my future, but these seem to be very limited. Of course there are best-selling books, but I work VERY long hours and it is tough for me to sit down to synthesize everything. Are there are soon-to-be fathers and fathers in this community that run into this same problem? I have read a couple popular books like What To Expect When You're Expecting and a couple others, which I took very detailed notes that summarize the book(s) into about a 1hr read. Do any of you think you would benefit from a condensed, no-nonsense "cliff notes" for these books? Moms, is this something that you think would encourage your partner to read more about pregnancy and being a father?

I would love to give back to the community, since you all share such good experiences and advice online. What do you think?

meggyme

YES! I've been searching for just that, especially pre-pregnancy. I want my hubby to understand what he's agreeing to so that he can make informed decisions about his lifestyle and TTC.

DH is not much of a reader and works a lot. Since I'm definitely leading the charge toward babies, I've been trying to make it as easy as possibly to be informed with little success. A comprehensive set of basics for before, during and after pregnancy would be exactly what I've been searching for.

polooo27

Yes, I think that would be helpful. I read a couple dad books and they weren't very helpful because they focused on how sucky it would be, but that it would be worth it. It's like the author tried to be funny the whole time and didn't really say anything helpful.

I think a condensed book full of facts would be better.

Week 1: Your wife feels this way and your baby feels this way and this is how you probably feel and this is what you can do.

Week 2-40: Something similar.

Same thing for when the baby is born. A couple pages for each milestone. A lot of the weeks could even be bunched up.

The thing is, for most curious dads this stuff could be found on the internet pretty easily. The only benefit would be that it's in a nice little package.

Ratpasta

maggiee22 said:

Hello everyone! First and foremost, I am a first-time poster (veteran reader) and I am very thankful to discover such an informative community! Thanks to all of you with your contributions for others to learn from.

My question -- I have been searching for solid resources (books, audiobooks, etc.) to help inform me on what to expect in my future, but these seem to be very limited. Of course there are best-selling books, but I work VERY long hours and it is tough for me to sit down to synthesize everything. Are there are soon-to-be fathers and fathers in this community that run into this same problem? I have read a couple popular books like What To Expect When You're Expecting and a couple others, which I took very detailed notes that summarize the book(s) into about a 1hr read. Do any of you think you would benefit from a condensed, no-nonsense "cliff notes" for these books? Moms, is this something that you think would encourage your partner to read more about pregnancy and being a father?

I would love to give back to the community, since you all share such good experiences and advice online. What do you think?

You would be surprised at how little there is out there for dads.  I joined this board four years ago and was kind of run out of here by many of the moms.

Men aren't supposed to struggle and/or ask for help.  Im not sure why thats not really acceptable in our culture but thats the way it is.

Find a couple of good friends and band together!  I'm here with ya.

All I can say is that it get easier....